Adrenal Fatigue – Are You Heading Down The Wrong Path?

In our busy lives, our adrenals are a key component in keeping up with all the demands placed on us, and if you have ever had adrenal fatigue, you know that life grinds to a halt. You really don’t have the energy at all to meet the day, waking up just as exhausted as when you went to bed.

Two years ago I was flat on my back with adrenal fatigue. I was already on the downward slide when the Christchurch earthquakes hit.

I did a lot of study about what supplements I could take, and on a shoe string budget I might add, which was very stressful.

David Wolfe is big on how to support the adrenals, lying flat with no pillow, ashwaghanda, astragalus, celtic sea salt in water and other remedies.

Eating the right foods is very important. Making sure you cut out all refined sugar, as sugar surges taxes the adrenals.

But the biggest message I learned, other than resting, was to deal with my emotional issues.

I started using the Emotion Code, and having Emotion Code sessions, and learning to say No. Which of course is easy when youre sick, it’s harder when you’re up and functioning.

I tried to create more of a buffer of energy between my outward production and having energy for the basics. I learned how to pace myself better, not treating myself like a workhorse, creating better limits and boundaries.

Then I began studying Meta Health and it all started to make sense. How it was so easy to trigger my cortisol levels to rise, and keep me in a state of anxiety and stress. And why and how I wasn’t supporting my parasympathetic nervous system, which is about resting and recovery.

From a Meta Health point of view, and understanding humans at a biological level, adrenal fatigue shows us that we are heading down the wrong path, it slows down the person so they can work out what is the right path to take, and from a pack/community mentality, it supports a person to find the right people and practices that nourish and support them.

It took me a while to understand how I was heading down the wrong path. Because at one level, I was really happy doing the work that I love, feeling I had found my true calling.

I realised it can be a really subtle thing. I could be lying there, resting, and thinking about my to do list. So on an adrenal level, I am kicking my adrenals into gear to mobilise my energy to prepare for the demands of my to do list. And physically I was still lying there resting and relaxing.

I also had an issue around rehearsing in my mind everything I needed to do before I did it. As a way to feel safe with what I was about to embark on, and that was causing me to lose energy. Instead of just going and doing it.

The underlying beliefs for me were very much around performance anxiety, and worried I wasn’t going to be able to achieve what I wanted, not feeling good enough, accomplished enough, and anxious that it would turn out fine.

How many of us have a sense of heading into our day and having this weight of pressure ahead of us, about what we have to deal with. Our adrenals will kick in, in preparation for that day.

We all have our pressures, but energetically clearing out those triggers, which would be causing my adrenals to work overtime, was key.

Another area of interest was about night time dreams. That even in my dreams I felt like I was having encounters with situations and people which felt *wrong*, I was waking up with hot flashes, this was an indication that my adrenals were kicking in as well.

Intermittently I also was thinking everyone else had it great and I didn’t, even negative fantasising is *going down the wrong path* from a biological point of view, requiring adrenaline to get you back on the right path.

Finding ways to keep the fuel in the tank, and working on clearing out the triggers are key to recovering from adrenal fatigue.

Dissolving the underlying negative beliefs about how to move forward and being able to carry responsibilities with a sense of ease and confidence will help your adrenals to recover.

It really does come down to being able to be in the present moment, and not worrying about the future and letting go of the past.

In what ways do you stress your adrenals?